Bharti Airtel’s data centre entity, Nxtra, plans to invest ₹5,000 crores by 2025 to triple data centre capacity in the country to over 400 MW to meet the surging demand coming from domestic and global customers and to prepare for 5G technology.
Under the expansion, the company will set up seven new data centre parks in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Noida, Chennai and Kolkata, taking the total data centre count to 17. It already operates 120 edge data centres to address demand coming from tier 1 and tier 2 cities. The telco also unveiled a refreshed brand identity, Nxtra by Airtel, for its data centre business. The entity will also focus on expanding the capacity of existing data centres in India.
“The expansion will be funded using the company’s own accrued cash flow and funds from Carlyle Group’s recent investment,” Ajay Chitkara, director and CEO of Airtel Business, said. “In the last three years, our revenue has tripled for data centre business. We expect it to continue to grow as it is a huge opportunity. We are the only integrated player which can offer connectivity and data centres. We are ensuring that every new and existing cable system lands into these data centres.”
As per the company’s estimates, the data centre market in India will reach $4 billion in the next 4 years. The Indian data centre industry is expected to more than double its installed capacity from approximate 450 MW to 1074 MW by 2023.
Nxtra by Airtel is already aggressively scaling up the use of green energy for its data centres and aims to source 50 per cent of the power requirements of these centres through renewable sources as part of their overall GHG emission reduction targets. The company has also recently commissioned solar power plants in the state of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
